


made friends with a ghost

by badritual



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Developing Friendships, Don't copy to another site, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Ghost Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Force Ghosts Popping Up Where They're Least Expected (Or Wanted), Gen, Not Beta Read, Other characters to be added as they appear, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Reluctant Friendships, Slow To Update, Some Humor, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, developing plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:28:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22036327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badritual/pseuds/badritual
Summary: It feels like a dream—itmustbe a dream. He hadn’t been a Jedi. He can’t be a ghost. Hecan’tbe here.He shimmers faintly, fading a little bit before steadying. It feels unpracticed. She wonders if this is the first time he’s shown himself to anyone since he—since—Rey reaches up, grinds her fists into her eyes. When she lowers her hands, he’s still there.
Relationships: Finn & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Finn & Rey (Star Wars), Poe Dameron & Finn, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Kudos: 20





	1. The Visitation

**Author's Note:**

> Uhh. I guess this is a thing that happened? I dunno. I'll probably add some more to it as it develops a plot. I'm not planning for any romance. 
> 
> Title from "everything is fine," by Teen Suicide.
> 
>  **Additional Warnings:** This ignores the Reylo kiss.

The first time she sees him—just the faintest outline of his shape, pale gray-blue like the skies that hovered over Ahch-To, the island that had become her home for a little while—she thinks she’s hallucinating. 

Rey is cleaning her blaster in her quarters when a sudden, inexplicable chill skitters down the back of her neck. Instinctively, she drops her rag and the disassembled parts of her blaster, reaches for the lightsaber clipped to her belt. 

“ _It’s only me_.”

Him.

Rey’s hand falls away from the hilt of her ’saber. It’s hard to make him out at first, luminescent and shimmering in the dark of her dimly lit room. She slides off her bed, bare feet sinking into soft carpet. 

It feels like a dream—it _must_ be a dream. He hadn’t been a Jedi. He can’t be a ghost. He _can’t_ be here.

He shimmers faintly, fading a little bit before steadying. It feels unpracticed. She wonders if this is the first time he’s shown himself to anyone since he—since—

Rey reaches up, grinds her fists into her eyes. When she lowers her hands, he’s still there. 

“Ben?” 

When she reaches out, her hand slices through him, his image rippling like curtains on a breeze. Her fingers are cold and she draws back, wary.

“ _I wanted to see you_.” His voice crashes into her like the waves that tossed themselves against the craggy cliffside of Ahch-To. “ _I’ve been trying to show myself to you for weeks. It’s been…difficult._ ”

Rey takes a tentative step forward, then another. “Where have you been?”

 _Have you seen Luke and Leia?_ she doesn’t ask. 

_Have you seen my grandfather?_ she is wise enough to keep sealed behind her trembling lips.

Ben tilts his head, his dark hair brushing his shoulder as he gazes at her. “ _You—you’re different_ ,” his voice rumbles through her head, and she can’t tell the difference between his words and her thoughts.

Rey frowns. “Different? I haven’t changed. I—”

Now it’s Ben’s hand that passes through her. Rey goes rigid as his ghostly hand slips through her chest, the chill that she’d only felt inklings of spreading through her. When she looks down, she glimpses his translucent arm buried in her chest. 

Ben drops his arm. “ _Sorry_ ,” he mumbles. “ _Not used to—to not being able to touch._ ”

She follows the path of his eyes as he glances about her small quarters, all the Resistance could spare for her. His gaze lands on her half-packed bag. 

“I’m going to Tatooine,” Rey explains, gesturing to the two lightsabers clipped to her belt. 

“ _My mother didn’t have very fond memories of Tatooine_ ,” Ben muses.

“I know,” Rey says, “but it’d felt wrong to separate them.”

“ _I’d offer to join you but I don’t think the ghosts of Tatooine like me very much_ ,” he says. 

“I won’t be alone,” Rey says. “I’ll have BB-8 with me. And Finn and P—”

The door to her room slides open and Finn walks in, caught up in conversation, distracted. 

“So, I said, ‘I _know_ you’re cheating, Ullam. I can sense it. Through the Force.’ I couldn’t, of course, I haven’t got _that_ far with my lessons yet, but Ullam—” Finn stops short, finger falling from the commlink pinned to the lapel of his jacket, as he strides right through Ben’s ghost. 

Ben ripples like waves on water. Finn wheels about, eyes as big as saucers, as Ben’s spirit shimmers around him like a ghostly pale curtain.

“Finn!” Rey grabs onto his hand and pulls him free. 

Ben’s Force ghost knits itself back together, then casts Finn a baleful glare.

“Rey. Is that who I think it is?” Finn tugs his hand free to grab for his blaster.

“That won’t do you any good,” she says, a smile curling her lips. “He’s a Force ghost.”

Finn lets his hand drop away from his blaster. He tips his chin toward Ben’s ghost. “What’s he doing here?”

“ _I can hear you, you know_ ,” Ben mutters, darkly. 

“Doesn’t this—ah—seem like something you should tell General Leia about?” Finn asks, grasping blindly for Rey’s hand. He finds it and squeezes, to offer reassurance or seek some of his own Rey isn’t sure. 

“I don’t want to burden her any more than she’s already burdened,” Rey says, squeezing back. “I don’t think he means us any harm. Force ghosts can’t hurt people.”

But she isn’t really sure. She remembers Master Skywalker’s ghost emerging from the wreckage of Kylo Ren’s TiE, the lightsaber she’d hurled into the flames clutched in his hand. Maybe Ben could hurt them if he wanted to. Perhaps he’d come for revenge.

“ _I’m not going to hurt anyone,_ ” Ben adds, with an almost petulant huff. “ _I can’t. And I don’t want to. I’m not here for revenge._ ”

Finn turns to Rey, his eyes still wide. “This is too much, Rey.”

Rey gives his hand another squeeze before letting go. “Why don’t you wait for me in the hall. I’ll send him on his way.”

Ben wavers irritatedly at that.


	2. Late Night Conversations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Rey finds herself jerked out of sleep rather unceremoniously, spilling headfirst in a heap on the floor of her room on the newly minted Resistance base._
> 
> Force Ghost Ben Solo keeps popping up at inopportune moments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sort of...developing a plot as we go along, I guess. I suppose this is mostly an exercise in dumb humor and a Force Ghost learning how to be a proper Force Ghost while getting an actual redemption arc? ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> Basically this is just me throwing some ideas about redemption into a sack, tossing in some dumb humor, half a plot, and a bewildered Force Ghost and shaking until a story comes out.
> 
> Also, I'd just like to point out that if the relationship tags caught your eye there isn't going to be any romance here. Just reluctant friendships with an emphasis on "reluctant."

Rey finds herself jerked out of sleep rather unceremoniously, spilling headfirst in a heap on the floor of her room on the newly minted Resistance base. 

Her dreams had been full of fire and gore—flames licking at her skin, singeing her hair, peeling the flesh off her bones. She shivers as faint, phantom screams echo in her head. 

But they hadn’t felt like _her_ dreams. They felt as if they belonged to someone else. She’d blame Ben for putting them in her head if that was a thing Force ghosts were even capable of.

Sighing tiredly, Rey disentangles herself from her blankets and picks herself up off the floor. Her nightshift has hiked up her thighs and she tugs it back down, smoothing out the wrinkles. 

“ _You were dreaming of Mustafar,_ ” Ben’s disembodied voice floats overhead. 

Rey frowns at the ceiling. “I’d really rather you don’t do that,” she huffs, dumping her blankets back onto her cot. She tugs at some flyaway strands of hair, tucking them back into one of her buns. “It’s weird. I feel like I’m talking to myself.”

Ben materializes slowly, appearing to her in shades of blue, like a hologram at first.

“ _Sorry_ ,” he says, not sounding very apologetic at all. “ _I could sense your distress._ ”

Rey settles back on her cot. “I thought our bond died with you on Exegol,” she says.

“ _It did. But there’s still an echo of it in the Force_ ,” he says. “ _It’s fading, though. I suppose, sooner or later, it’ll disappear completely._ ”

Rey tugs her blanket over her lap and squints at his shape in the dark. She flips her hand in his general direction. “Can you…” 

How does one tell a Force ghost they’d like some privacy? The thought of anyone, even a harmless—she thinks—Force ghost watching her while she sleeps makes her skin crawl.

“ _I understand_ ,” Ben says. He pauses, and the silence grows ponderous between them. If she wasn’t still so attuned to him she’d have thought he let her be. “ _I think I’ve been sent back for a reason._ ”

Of course she’s gotten the talkative Force ghost. She almost misses the sullen, brooding silences of the former Kylo Ren. _Almost_. 

Rey punches at her pillow before hunkering down under the covers. “And what reason is that?” she mutters, sleepily.

“ _I—I think I’ve been tethered to you and I can’t leave until I’ve made amends_ ,” he says, quietly. 

“Can we talk about this in the morning?” Rey asks, feigning a yawn so that he’ll get the hint and go.

“ _Of course_ ,” Ben says. “ _I think I’ll go drop in on FN—ah, Finn_.”

Ben blips out with a sudden pop in her ears.

Rey sits bolt-upright in her bed. _Oh no_.


	3. Unwanted Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Kylo Ren—Ben Solo—steps out of Finn’s wall, glowing a translucent blue._
> 
> _It’s strange to seen Ren unmasked, his face unmarked. He looks—well, he looks almost ordinary. Almost human._
> 
> Kylo wants to make amends. Finn is not having it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is still trucking along. And still kinda dumb.
> 
> Annnnnd, just like that, I figured out where this story is going to go. So maybe you can expect more regular updates. idk.

Finn’s sitting cross-legged in bed, pouring over his datapad, when the lights in his room flicker. The air grows chilly and his skin prickles with gooseflesh. Frowning, he lets a hand rest on the commlink pinned to his vest. He taps it lightly.

“Poe,” he murmurs, “did you feel that?”

Poe’s voice crackles over the commlink, sounding pleasant and slightly woozy on the spiced rum they’d shared over dinner earlier. “ _Did I feel **what** , buddy._”

“I just felt a disturbance in the—”

“ _Might I remind you I’m as Force sensitive as a tree stump, Finn?_ ” Poe laughs.

Finn lets his hand fall away from the commlink. He can’t quite explain it—would never be able to explain it, not even to Rey—but it feels like a mighty wind is whistling through his head. He flings out his hand, gropes for his blaster with the Force. 

Kylo Ren—Ben Solo—steps out of Finn’s wall, glowing a translucent blue. 

It’s strange to seen Ren unmasked, his face unmarked. He looks—well, he looks almost ordinary. Almost human.

“ _That blaster’s useless,_ ” Ren points out. “ _I’m already dead._ ”

Finn lets his hand drop. “What do you want?” he spits out through gritted teeth. 

“ _I wanted to talk,_ ” Ren says. “ _I don’t think you and I have ever had a proper chat before._ ”

Finn scowls. “Without you trying to kill me? No, you’re right,” he snaps.

Ren’s Force ghost sighs, his whole body sagging and shuddering with it. “ _I think—I think I’ve been sent back to make amends with those I’ve hurt._ ”

Finn scrubs his hands over his face. “No. Absolutely not. I am _not_ dealing with this.” He points at the door. “Get out.”

“ _But—_ ” Ren begins.

“Get. Out.” Finn stabs his finger at the door. “I have a lot of things in my cockpit already. I don’t have time for an evil Force ghost on top of that.”

“ _I’m not evil_ ,” Ren says, huffily, his mouth turning down in a pout. 

“OUT.” Finn grabs a boot off the floor and flings it at Ren’s head. It slices through his frown and bounces harmlessly off the wall. It’s not as satisfying or cathartic as Finn was hoping it would be.

“ _As you wish_ ,” Ren says, stepping back and fading into the shadows of Finn’s quarters.

All the noise in Finn’s head goes blessedly silent. 

He flops back in his bed and rubs his hands over his face. Just his luck he’d get targeted by the most evil man in the galaxy. _After_ he died.

“Kriff.” Finn drops his hands in his lap and sighs. “I need a drink.”


End file.
